Men Of Flesh And Blood by Emilia Clark Read Free Book Online

scene, he was seen by an undercover officer. The policeman
observed Chikatilo approach a well and wash his hands and face.
When he approached the station, the undercover officer noted that
his coat had grass and soil stains on the elbows. Chikatilo also
had a small red smear on his cheek. To the officer, he looked
suspicious. The only reason people entered woodland near the
station at that time of year was to gather wild mushrooms, a
popular pastime in Russia. Chikatilo, however, was not dressed like
a typical forest hiker, he was wearing attire that is more formal.
Moreover, he had a nylon sports bag, which was not suitable for
carrying mushrooms.
     
    The undercover policeman
stopped Chikatilo and checked his papers, but had no formal reason
to arrest him. When the policeman returned to his office, he filed
a routine report, containing the name of the person he had stopped
at the train station.
     
    On November 13, Korostik's
body was found. Police summoned the officer in charge of
surveillance at Donleskhoz Station and examined the reports of all
men stopped and questioned in the previous week. Chikatilo's name
was among those reports, and his name was familiar to several
officers involved in the case, as he had been questioned in 1984
and placed upon a 1987 suspect list compiled and distributed
throughout the Soviet Union. Upon checking with Chikatilo's present
and previous employers, investigators were able to place Chikatilo
in various towns and cities at times when several victims linked to
the investigation had been killed.
     
    Former colleagues from
Chikatilo's teaching days informed investigators that Chikatilo had
been forced to resign from his teaching position due to complaints
of sexual assault from several pupils. Police placed Chikatilo
under surveillance on November 14. In several instances,
particularly on trains or buses, he was observed to approach lone
young women or children and engage them in conversation, if the
woman or child broke off the conversation, Chikatilo would wait a
few minutes and then seek another conversation partner. This was
all observed by the police. On November 20, after six days of
surveillance, Chikatilo left his house with a one-gallon flask of
beer, than wandered around Novocherkassk, attempting to make
contact with children he met on his way. Upon exiting a cafe,
Chikatilo was arrested by four plainclothes police
officers.
     
    After being arrested,
Chikatilo gave a statement claiming that the police were mistaken,
and complained that he had also been arrested in 1984 for the same
series of murders. A strip search of the suspect revealed a further
piece of evidence, one of Chikatilo's fingers had a flesh wound.
Medical examiners concluded the wound was, in fact, from a human
bite. Chikatilo's second to last victim was a physically strong
16-year-old youth. At the crime scene, the police had found
numerous signs of a ferocious physical struggle between the victim
and his murderer. Although a finger bone was later found to be
broken and his fingernail had been bitten off, Chikatilo had never
sought medical treatment for the wound. A search of Chikatilo's
belongings revealed he had been in possession of a folding knife at
the time of his arrest.
     
    Chikatilo was placed in a
cell inside the KGB headquarters in Rostov with a police informant,
who was instructed to engage Chikatilo in conversation and obtain
any information he could from him.
     
    The next day, 21 November,
formal questioning of Chikatilo began. The interrogation was
performed by Issa Kostoyev. The strategy chosen by the police to
elicit a confession was to lead Chikatilo to believe that he was a
very sick man in need of medical help. The intention of this
strategy was to give Chikatilo hope that if he confessed, he would
not be prosecuted by reason of insanity. Police knew their case
against Chikatilo was largely circumstantial, and under Soviet law,
they had ten days in which they could legally hold a suspect